Austin Police Association President Mike Sheffield is back on the full-time union beat, just weeks after being moved to the Sex Offender Apprehension Registration Unit on a part-time basis. Sheffield says Austin Police Dept. Assistant Chief Jimmy Chapman told him the reassignment was “just a misunderstanding.” Maybe that’s what it came down to after APD administrators read the harshly worded letter the APA board of directors penned to APD Chief Stan Knee on June 21, calling the move clearly retaliatory. “Your actions now send a new and distinctly chilling message — those who have the courage to be open and honest will be punished,” the letter read.
In the weeks before Sheffield’s reassignment, the union had become vocal on a variety of topics arguably unpopular with the department’s brass, and went so far as to ask Knee to order a full administrative review of the Mala Sangre joint drug investigation of the mid-Nineties — during which a handful of officers allegedly participated in criminal activity. Sheffield has remained meditative about the fifth floor’s wrangling, at least publicly. “First and foremost, I am a police officer,” he said. “I am back on full-time union business with the understanding that if they get short over there, they’ll call.”
This article appears in July 26 • 2002.